The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-05-19

The men who want the whole earth 10
themselves would have got it before this
had it not been for the banding together
of great organizations. And, while we
deplore many things that have been done
by them, their existence is a necessity,
and their legitimate sphere distinctly
pointed out by the providence of God.
Such organizations are trying TO
dismiss from their association all
members in favor of anarchy and social
chaos. They will gradually cease any
thing like tyranny over their members,
and will forbid vic emit interference with
any mans work, whether he belongs to
their union or is outside of it, and will de-
clare their disgust with any such rule as
that passed in England by the Manchester
Bricklayers' Association, which says any
man found running or working beyond a
regular speed shall be fined 2s 81 for the
first offense, IS for the second, los for the
third, and If still persisting, shall be dealt
with as the committee think proper.
There are secret societies in our col
leges that have letters of the Greek alpha
bet for their nomenclature, and their
members are at the very front in scholar
ship and irreproachable in morals, while
there are others the scene of carousal,
and they gamble, and they drink, and
they gr aduate knowing hundred times
more about sin than they do of geometry
and Sophocles.
You and / every day know of CONNER
cial establishments going to ruin through
the social excess of one or two members,
their fortune beaten to death with ball
players bat, or cut amidships with the
PROV of the regatta, or going down under
the swift hoofs of the fast horses, or
drowned in the large rotations of cognac
or Monongahela. That secret society was
the Loeb Earn. Their business was the
Vile de Havre. They struck, and the
Vile de Havre went under.
The third test by which you may know
whether the society to which you belong
is good or bad is this: What is it's effect
on your sense of moral and re-
ligious obligation! Now, if l should
take the names of all the people in
this audience this morning and put
them on roll, and then I should lay that
roll back of this organ, and hundred
years from now some one should take that
| roll and call it from A to 2 there would
| not one of you answer. I say that any So
ciety that makes me forget that fact is bad
society. When go to ChicagoI am some
| many travellers are, as to whether it is
better to take the Lake Shore route or the
Michigan Central, equally expeditions and
| equally safe, getting to their destination
at the same time. But suppose that
hear that on one route the track is torn
| up, the bridges are down and the switches
| are unlocked, it will not take me great
while to decide which road to take.
L O fyvn Ia in a fI1f II q
the Christian and the unchristian, the
safe and the unsafe. Any institution or
any association that confuses my ideas in
regard to that fact is bad Institution and
| bad association. / had prayers before I
| joined that society; did / have them af-
terward2 I attended the house of God
before 1 connected myself with that
| union; do absent myself from religious
| infiuences? Which would you rather
have in your hand when you come to die
"a pack of cards or a Bibles Which
would you rather have pressed to your
| lips in the closing moment-the cup of
Belsbazzarean wassail or the chalice of
| Christian communion? Who would You
rather have. for your pall-bearers-the
| elders of Christian church
| or the companions whose con-
| versation was full of slang
| and 1nnuendol Who would you rather
| have for your eternal companions-those
men who spend their evenings betting,
| gambling, swearing, carousing and tell
| ing vile stories, or your little child. that
| bright little girl whom the Lord tooki Oh,
you would not have been away SO much
nights, would you, if You had known she
was going away so soonl Dear me, your
| house has never been the same place
! since. Your wife has never frightened
up, she has never got over it. She will
never get over it. How long the evenings
are with no one to put to bed and no
one to whom to tell the beautiful Bible
| stories.
What pity it is that you can not spend
more evenings at home in trying to help
her bear that sorrow. You can never
drown that grief in wine cup. You can
never break away from the little arms
that used to be flung around your neck
| when she used to say:
"Papa. do stay with me tonight Dc
stay with me tonight
You will never be able to wipe away
from your lips the dying kiss of your lit
tie girl. The fascination of bad secret
society is so great that sometimes man
has turned his back on his home when his
child was dying of scarlet fever. he
| went away. Before he got back al
midnight the eyes had been closed
the undertaken had done his work
and the wife, worn out with three weeks
watching, lay unconscious in the next
room. Then the returned father comes
upstairs, and he sees the cradle gone
and the windows up, and says:
whats the mattera''
On the judgment day he will find ou
what was the matter.
Oh, man astray, God help you'll I an
going to make a very stout rope. Yor
know that some times rope-maker will
take very small threads and wind then
together until after awhile they become
ship cable. And am going to take some
very small, delicate threads and wint
them together until they make &
very stout rope. / will take all the
memories of the marriage day-a threae
of laug liter, a thread of light, thread O
music, a thread of banqueting, thread
of congratulation, and / twist them to
gether and have one strand. Then
take thread of the hour of the first ad
vent in your house. thread of the dark
ness that preceded, and thread Of tn,
light that followed, and a thread Of tn,
beautiful scarf that little child used t,
| = he, c1.o IaJ